Aurora

sleeping beloved

The Sleeping Beloved Saga

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper as his complement.”  So the LORD God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man no helper was found as his complement.  So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place.  Then the LORD God made the rib He had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man.  And the man said: “This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called ’woman,’ for she was taken from man.” ~ Genesis 2:18-23

I wanted to end my Sleeping Beloved saga where we began.  It was a cyclical journey, after all…

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sleeping beloved

Maleficent Restored

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.” ~ Genesis 50:20

And here we are, ending at the beginning.  Once more, this post contains spoilers from Disney’s Maleficent – so proceed with care!

Maleficent is no longer the villain we love to fear from the animated classic.  Her heart has shed its masks and been drawn to the call of its savior.  She has remembered who she used to be, before tragedy struck: a warrior-lover, a battle-maiden intent upon protecting that which she loves…

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Phillip: A Better Troylus

It’s written in our hearts to long for a Warrior-Lover.  We long to be worth fighting for, to be worth the struggle.  It’s also written in our hearts to be a warrior-lover for someone else – to fight passionately for our beloved, no matter the cost.  We want to be both the beloved and the warrior-lover, and in God’s story, we get to be.  He is our Warrior-Lover, who saw us as worth fighting for, even unto death.  Likewise, after experiencing such lavish love, we are called to be warrior-lovers to those around us – to show them the same love shown to us.

And yet, we don’t always feel like we have a Warrior-Lover, and often we fail to be warrior-lovers ourselves…

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Aurora: The Second Zellandine

I’m not sure if Disney intended to make Aurora a second Zellandine.  I like to think he did.  He was a master storyteller, after all; and the fact that he sets the tale in the 14th century – the century in which Perceforest was written – hints that he was at least referring to Zellandine.   

Six hundred years separate Zellandine and Aurora, and yet they are incredibly similar…

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Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty”

We are finally within the last hundred years!  The Walt Disney 1959 animated version of Sleeping Beauty is a timeless classic, giving a fresh voice to the Sleeping Beloved characters.  Disney masterfully crafted the fairy tale into something unique; and yet, the story remained true to its nature…    

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Tchaikovsky’s Aurora

Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty ballet debuted in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1890.  The storyline follows the Brothers’ Grimm version of the tale (although Tchaikovsky gives a nod to Perrault by including characters from Perrault’s other stories).  There are only two “significant” contributions the ballet adds to the Sleeping Beloved saga: the music and the name of the heroine, both of which are used in Disney’s 1959 animated feature.

By and large, the ballet is not considered a “major” rendition.  It is, however, of major importance to me… 

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